How I lost my camera

I was at an internet cafe in Sarajevo, Bosnia on 20 June'09, to use up my last 15 minutes of credit. I had been there earlier in the morning and used up my first 45 minutes of internet time.

Where I lost my camera

The guy at the cafe told me the internet was not working due to the rain. This was not surprising, as my host had also told me the same thing the night before. I was just about to leave when I heard the sound of Winning Eleven being played on the PlayStation 3 upstairs, so I thought I'd join the people upstairs for a game whilst waiting for the internet to come up again, since I had done my sightseeing already, and I was also hoping to see how good Bosnian kids were at the game.
On the second level of the internet cafe were 3 kids playing. They were not really kids actually, more like 16-18 years old, dressed like any teenager would. They charged me EUR1 to play a game with them, to which I thought whatever.. and just joined in the fun.

War roses - mortar scars commemorating the mortar shell victims

I placed my camera (in its bag) and bag on the same counter as the TV. It was 2m away from me, 45 deg to my left and within view. Like this:

As the game went on, 1 kid came from the left and asked me questions about where I was staying etc, distracting me from the game, and focus from my camera, whilethe 3rd kid SWAPPED my camera for an old antique soviet camera AND a rock.

After the game (which I lost to a dubious penalty), I asked for a rematch which the kids agreed to, for free. But within 2 minutes of the rematch, they suddenly said they had to rush off and ran down the stairs.After another 2 min I thought it was strange to leave their cigarettes behind, so i did a check on my camera bag, and noted the swap had been done.

The kids had obviously gone by then.

SUCKY...

My host family, who did everything they could to console me

What I lost:

• damn decent camera
• Trust in foreign children

Lessons learnt:

• Locals always blame the gypsies
• Bad locals exist (I believe the kids were not gypsies)
• It is wise to back up your photos every couple of days
• When on holiday, take life easy. I felt much better the following day and carried on my travels
• You cannot outwit/understand organised crime alone
• The soviet camera is not worth more than SGD30